From Whence the Captains of Our Lives: Ultimate and Phylogenetic Perspectives on Emotions in Humans and Other Primates (original) (raw)

We outline an evolutionary approach to emotions intended to spur further research on the subject in humans and nonhumans alike. Combining adaptationist, comparative, and phylogenetic analyses, we seek to illuminate the functions that emotions fulfill, the reasons why they take the forms that they do, and the extent to which they are shared across species. Using similar logic, we distinguish between emotions and attitudes, cognitive representations of other actors that are both informed by, and potentiate, emotions. Employing select emotions as illustrations, we discuss a taxonomy of emotions. We begin with emotions that address adaptive challenges common across animals, and which require minimal cognitive capacities, features that make it likely that they are widely shared across species. Next, we consider emotions involved in elementary sociality, a category further elaborated in emotions playing a role in parenting and pair-bonding. In light of the importance of dyadic cooperative relationships in primate societies, we describe a set of emotions undergirding such relationships that we expect to be shared by human and nonhuman primates. To a more limited degree, we expect pan-primate similarities with regard to vicarious emotions, those wherein the individual experiencing the emotion is affected only indirectly by the eliciting event. The greater range and complexity of human social relationships, including the human